5 Comments

Joe Lapinski

Very cool intro video! My back hurts watching you move all of that steel.

I think you will be happy going electric for the power source also due to noise. You’re going to be running it for hours and maybe your kid (soon to be kids – congrats!) could nap through the noise of an electric mill versus gas 🙂

You may have a hard time finding a single phase 10hp electric TEAO motor – it would be a 50A circuit for single phase 240V and generally electrical design practices limits running large feeder lines which . 5hp you can find single phase but 7.5hp or 10hp might be a stretch. The National Electric Code does list 10hp but it’s the largest listed for single phase.

Using a phase converter would let you make 3P power from 1p power, but you’re still looking at some large wiring (depending on where your electrical service is located) unless you use a step-up transformer to take 220V/3P from the phase converter and then bump it up to 460V/3p. Adding in the VFD for speed control (and soft start) is a great idea but using a VFD with the power output of a phase converter is a potential challenge. VFDs can be finicky on the quality of the power coming in to them and they have their own circuitry to keep the power clean. The power from a phase converter probably isn’t that clean and could cause the VFD to freak out a bit.

Keep up the good work and I am looking forward to watching this progress. And, keep that drill press sunny side up!

Joe Lapinski

I was too curious as to the availability of 10hp single phase motors. I went looking and Leeson and Baldor make 3450RPM “farm duty” motors (intended for crop driers) that might actually be a good fit for your project. It’s a standard 184 frame and has a keyed shaft, which would be perfect. I’m not sure how much gearing down you’re thinking of but I believe my bandsaw is a 2:1 ratio and 3:1 on resaw speed.

hahaha I was going to say but now I don’t have to. I was going to pick up a 10hp leeson motor from someone on craigslist but someone else contacted me yesterday after hearing about the project and has a 10hp 3ph motor that he’s not using and would like to see it put to good use. So that’s the route I’ll be going. I’ll need to work out the reduction based on the optimum blade speed. Progress! 🙂

Joe E

Hey Matt, really enjoy your channel and excited to watch your mill build. I built a gas powered saw several years back and started with the track first, then the carriage, then saw head etc. For what it’s worth, I’m working with a buddy on.a 60″ slabber right now and we are building in the opposite order. It is so much easier to fit the carriage to the tensioner, and the track to the carriage than carriage to the track etc. Keep up the great work!